For what it's worth, the regions give me exactly what I need: customization of design without writing or altering code.<br><br>The 4.7 site that I'm working on has 7 regions, though some of them are not obvious from the presentation.
<br><br>One of them is currently unused, 3 are left-rail, content, footer.<br><br>I also added 'login', 'header' (unused), 'inline', and 'right header'.<br><br>On this page: <a href="http://rubybaboon.com/taxonomy/term/20">
http://rubybaboon.com/taxonomy/term/20</a> it lets me:<br><br> - put the login in the upper right<br> - put Tagadelic's tag cloud next to my site logo<br> - put the 'popularity' ranking (custom module) above the content (that's the inline block).
<br><br>So I think the issue may be: many people don't need multiple regions. Or it may be that people don't know how best to exploit them. The hidden region I have would allow me to post a sitewide message at the top of all pages instantly.
<br><br>In 4.6, I had to use flexiblock or use snippets. No more.<br><br>- Ken Rickard<br>agentrickard<br><br>